"Nervously, I approach the novelist, carrying the best box of chocolates I could find," writes Sharon Churcher. "I start to apologise that I hadn't brought more but a beaming Nelle, as her friends and family call her, extends her hand..."

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Churcher, a Daily Mail reporter taking a break from finding the up-side to the BP oil spill, went looking for Harper Lee in her home town of Monroeville, Alabama. Lee is famously press-shy and has published nothing in the 50 years since To Kill A Mockingbird was released.

But tabloid writers don't have to play by the anybody's rules! They get the un-gettable scoops! That ambush-interview-with-box-of-chocolates — "a Hershey's selection costing a few dollars" — move was genius, Churcher, genius!

Behold, Nelle Harper Lee's first public quoted words in years:

Thank you so much. You are most kind. We're just going to feed the ducks but call me the next time you are here. We have a lot of history here. You will enjoy it."